


and we'll stumble through heaven

by tanktrilby



Category: Gintama
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-04
Updated: 2015-12-04
Packaged: 2018-05-04 22:48:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5351240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tanktrilby/pseuds/tanktrilby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gintoki guesses that you have to have one or two screws loose to come hunting for demons in battlefields; doesn’t particularly mind that the first person who willingly talked to him in his whole life seemed to be a lunatic, with too-long hair and a girly face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and we'll stumble through heaven

**.one.**

There was a man lying dead in a ditch one day. He was middle-aged, white hairs closing in on what was left of the black, the forehead smooth and eyebrows drawn up in in what would be eternal surprise. The boys at the temple school he taught at were informed of his passing and wore formal clothes for the funeral, and to one, were glad that the punishments ( _naughty boy, you’ve been a naughty boy)_ were over.

 They said it had been an accident. Drunk and overheated, he had stumbled to the roadside and tried to splash his face with water from the public well, overbalanced and fallen in instead. There was the question of the way his hands had been trapped together by his haori, but no suspicions, not even the hint of one. No one probed further when it turned out that the only possible suspect was one of his students, laughable really, because the boy was no more than ten and the man had been known for his brute strength.

After the funeral was over, the boys went back to the school to nervously await what happened next. Two of them hung back.

“They wouldn’t have let it go so easy if he’d been found with only his head submerged, showing every sign of a great struggle.”

“Blah blah blah, details, whatever. He fell in, there’s no point talking about it.”

“Hm.”

They walked along, slower and slower until they came to a complete stop.

“Oi.”

“Yes?”

“I don’t really feel like going back there and waiting for another monster to show up.”

“Me neither.”

“Well then,” Gintoki said. He hitched his sword on his shoulder and raised his eyebrows. Under his feet the road stretched out, endless in every direction. There was so much of the world and so much of him, he wanted to leave traces of himself everywhere he went. “What comes next, Zura?”

 

**.five.**

“It’s not Zura, it’s Katsura,” Katsura said, in a low mumble, too quiet for anyone except Gintoki to hear.

The gang they were facing off against was almost entirely made up of adults, built wiry and thin with starved looks on their faces. They haunted the damp dark places with no name, the unlit heart of Edo; they called themselves the Red Lotuses and were the second biggest gang in the city. Gintoki wanted to have the fight that crackled in the air and be done with it already -they could win, he was sure they could- but apparently that wasn’t how these things worked.

“What was that, little Pretty Boy?” snarled one of the hyenas near the front. He had his hair shorn off entirely on one side so that he was half-bald. It was a stupid look. Gintoki picked his nose and thought about all the ways he could kill him.

“I said that it was only a matter of time before the Blue Dragons invaded your turf,” Katsura said. “I hope you’ll know better than to stand and fight. They outnumber you, and truthfully, they’re much smarter.”

 _Boom!_ went the leader’s borrowed sword, and it looked hilarious, a toothpick wielding a toothpick. He brought it to Zura’s throat and Gintoki had to fight not to roll his eyes. “I know what yer tryin to do,” he said. “Yer tryin to clean us out fer the sake a those plans a yours. I’ll tell ya now fer nothin, it’s not gonna work on us. We’re not payin a cent higher than we agreed.”

And then Zura’s eyes _lit up_ and he leaned forward so that a thin trickle of blood began to run down his pale perfect neck and the grown men looked freaked out, and Gintoki _lived_ for moments like this.

“Not in money,” Zura said, almost in a whisper. “You promised.”

The leader nodded. His jaw was set. “All in explosives, gotcha. You crazy little bastard.”

The fear in his eyes was the purest thing Gintoki had seen all week.

“Well then,” said Zura. He folded his arms and waited for the sword to slip away from his neck, which it did, almost bashfully. “Good day, and best of luck for your adventures.”

“Oi, Zura,” Gintoki said, later, while he watched Zura string explosives all around the Red Lotus’s hideout. “How much are the Blue Dragons paying us again, to set these morons up?”

“Nothing,” Katsura said. He had his teeth bared around a wire, gleaming white. “There’s no way they could afford us, not with their paltry funds. The Red Lotuses will win with just a little effort.”

“So why go to all the trouble…” Gintoki groaned at his own stupidity. “Of course. Why am I so surprised anyway, it’s you. You’re the only one screwed in the head enough to start a gang war just so you could blow shit up, Zura.”

“It’s Katsura,” said Zura, his small fingers light and careful, his smile serene. “C’mon Gintoki, time to leave.”

Footsteps clattered outside. Zura meant to blow up the Lotuses’ hideout with the Lotuses all in it, Gintoki realized.

He hummed in approval. “Warehouse two blocks down has a great view from the roof,” he said, and Katsura beamed, bright like starlight, like all the explosions in the world.

 

**.two.**

“Why did you do it?” Katsura asked him once, when they are tired of walking and the wind stung bitter on their bones. “You didn’t have to kill Sensei. He never called you.”

“Mm,” said Gintoki.

He remembered the naked greed in Sensei’s eyes -the way anticipation made him pant and sweat buckets, his big hands shaking- when he asked Katsura to stay behind. Horny bastard.

And there had been the batshit way Katsura had just taken off as soon as he said it, just vaulted his desk and sprinted without looking back, like _who even did that_. All the other boys just silently waited when they were called to stay behind to _be punished_ , resigned and terrified, but not Zura who had a few wires loose anyway.

Gintoki had imagined Zura running towards the mountain like someone from a dream, through the purple dusk and into a new world. The rest of the class was still gaping at the empty seat Zura had been in earlier.

 “…I guess I was feeling left out,” Gintoki said, and yawned when Zura rolled his eyes.

 

**.four.**

They celebrated their eleventh birthdays when they reached Edo, eating bowls of ramen and soba with their elbows knocking against each other. They paid using the last of the money they’d earned on the way by catching a highway bandit, pressed into their hands by a fat nobleman whose rings had caught the sunlight and hurt Gintoki’s eyes. They’d find more soon enough.

“And what business do you have, little pair of samurai?” asked the shop owner.

Katsura set his chopsticks against the bowl. “We’re looking for work that fits our talents, which are many. We’re Odd Jobs men.”

They struck about the city. There was another old man who caught sight of Katsura, another temporary roof over their heads, another plate of food to gradually poison. Before the man died Katsura made sure to familiarize himself with the accounts and sent Gintoki to collect rent from the tenants. It was a neat enough start.

Gintoki came back one day, pockets full, to overhear Zura saying “They’ve been growing in size, recruiting from the fringe villages. Soon they’ll be larger than your group.”

A nasally voice drawled, “And how do yer know that, Pretty Boy?”

“It’s not Pretty Boy, it’s Katsura,” Zura said. “Ahem. If you don’t believe me, then by all means ignore me and carry on as usual next week. I hope you won’t mind losing half your forces.”

A _thud_ had Gintoki almost stepping out of the shadows, but then Zura was saying, perfectly even, “They’ll come. The question is, what will you do about it? What I’m saying only confirms your suspicions. You need to be quick, and decisive. Take them out before they come for you.”

 _Bullshit._ There was only one route Zura truly believed in, and that was running away. So the little shit was up to something, not even half a year since they’d made it to Edo.

Gintoki sighed, and leaned against the doorframe. He hoped Zura wasn’t getting them stuck in this incredible mess for something useless, like bombs. Zura was obsessed with them.

 

**.three.**

Zura was the brains, the beauty and the brawn of their little setup. No one was entirely sure what Gintoki was aside from a pair of rust-colored eyes that glinted with death in the darkness, never catching light.

 

**.six.**

“Oi, Zura,” Gintoki says. He’s watching the explosions stain the ink-black night. The roof of the warehouse is chilly and they’re huddled for warmth, and he keeps getting Zura’s stupid wig stuck in his mouth.

“Hm?”

Gintoki snorts at the rapt expression on Zura’s face.  “Don’t you think we killed enough time here?” he asks.

“Hm, I guess. It’s only been a year.”

“As if we could just settle back after this mess, moron,” Gintoki snaps. “There are like three criminal gangs coming after us, plus the police, plus that zombie-creature you pissed off that time you stole its futon. We’re like that one kid who shouts too loud at the communal pool so that the lifeguards and teachers shush the whole class, oi. No one wants us here.”

Zura places his face on his hand, elbow digging into Gintoki’s stomach. Gintoki struggles for breath, and Zura looks at him, the explosion still lingering as an afterimage in his eyes.

“I’ve heard rumors,” Zura says. “Aliens. Subjugation. Technology that can split the whole of our planet in half.”

“And?”

“There’s a war coming, Gintoki. Isn’t that exactly the kind of adventure you’ve been looking for?”

 

**.zero.**

The boy with the long hair and the pretty face dragged himself back on to his feet. Warily, Gintoki readied himself. This might take longer than he expected.  

“My name is Katsura Kotarou,” says the boy. He held his hand out. He was smiling, and Gintoki recognized something in that smile: naked steel and lightning, the glint off the edge of a blade as it caught the sunlight. Gintoki guessed that you had to have one or two screws loose to come hunting for demons in battlefields; didn’t particularly mind that the first person who willingly talked to him in his whole life seemed to be a lunatic.

“You fight really well. No one at my dojo fights so well, so it’s very boring. Will you come with me?”

Gintoki shrugged. It wasn't like he had anything better to do.

“Yeah, sure, why not.”

**Author's Note:**

> ...dont look at me i dont know what this is either. the basic idea was "zura, not shoyou, finds and befriends gintoki" but then it became this and i dont know
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
